Well being that time of the year right now, people are spending a lot of time with their families. It’s the same way in my house. Every year we go and visit Santa down at our local mall. Who doesn’t love a bunch of screaming kids all gathered in one place!! I know I sure do! Makes for a really good time when you suffer from CRPS!  However I wouldn’t miss it for the world. You see some things are worth putting up with the pain for, and your kids are one of those things. I’m not about to sit back and miss out on all the special memories that we create as a family.  Sure I miss out on some things, however other things are too important and shouldn’t be missed.  So this is one of those times that you just have to say to yourself suck it up and keep going. 

My pain over the last week or so hasn’t been very good, even to the point where some of the symptoms that I suffer from are forcing me to go in to see my doctor this week. In spite of that however life goes on. I refuse to let the pain win.  The minute I do that then things start to spiral downward, causing other things to happen. So I choose to make the best out of every day and find a way to laugh about a bad situation. I think it’s really important to laugh. It can be really hard to do sometimes, but a lot of the time it can lift our spirits and help get us through the tough times. So that’s why sometimes I just have to laugh at my disability!

When my 6yr old was younger she would walk around the house with a glove on her left hand, and as she walk around saying “my hand is hurt like daddies”. She’d walk around the house doing everything with one hand. I need to be able to look at that and laugh about it.  I’ll often stop to take a look at things and ask myself, when am I the happiest or when do I suffer from the least amount of pain? The answer is simply when I’m laughing! You see if I laugh and make jokes then it’s a way to distract myself from the pain. You might ask well how does joking about you pain get your mind off the pain? It’s not that it gets your mind off the pain however it gets your mind off all the seriousness. It lightens your mood and you become happy for a moment in time. Let’s face it we spend so much time in pain that sometimes we just forget that we need to laugh!

There was another time last summer when we were swimming at our summer cottage where something funny happened. It had been about 4yrs since I’d been in the water because it’s just too hard for me to get in the water, never mind the fact that I can’t swim with two non-working limbs. Anyway it was one of the hottest days of the year and I was going to find a way to get in and cool off. Now let’s just say that it’s a whole lot easier getting in then getting out. When it came time to get out I had to find a way to get out of the water back onto our pier. So I sort of threw myself back onto the pier,  rolling and flopping myself around to get back on. My wife said that I looked like a seal the way that I was flopping around!  It again seemed that we had to laugh at my disability.  Once again I was finding a way to laugh at the given situation not letting it get me down.

In the midst of all my pain I need to be able to find a way to laugh. Not only does it help me but it also helps everyone around me as well. It also makes some of the bad days a little easier to handle. I can be having a really bad day and all it takes is one good laugh,  that in itself can change the rest of the day. Laughter really is the best medicine! If I find the laughter in a given situation, sometimes it makes it easier to tolerate the pain.  So take a moment in all of your pain to find it in yourself to laugh. Forget about all your worries for just one moment.

I don’t know what it is about babies that makes us laugh! I hope you had a good laugh because I know I did, and because of that I’ve created a point in my day where I can honestly say something good happened!! See ya soon!